Tag Archives: recipes

A few of my beer drinking buddies have shed a few tears because we can’t get Brew Dog’s Punk IPA here in Ontario anymore. It showed up briefly at local LCBO’s and then vanished just as quickly, never to be seen again.

I remember trying it, and at the time, I thought it fairly easy drinking, but really neither here nor there. I must be clear though, that is in no way a comment on Brew Dog’s brewing, it’s because I’m not the biggest fan of Nelsen Sauvin hops, which they use a lot of. I know, some of you out there are cursing me as I say that, but it’s just my personal taste, nothing more.

I must repeat, my personal taste is in no way a reflection of my opinion of Brew Dog itself. Brew Dogs’ story is extremely inspiring. The way they were able to grow as a result of thinking outside the box in both marketing approach, and financing, have most start-ups drooling. Not to mention their videos are a blast to watch! Check out their take on Punk IPA:

They seem like a bunch of very fun dudes. I seriously wish them nothing but a continuation of their already very successful trajectory.

So, back to our dilemma, since we have no Punk IPA in these parts, what to do? David Thompson, who was over a ways back to collaborate on a brew to clone Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, brought with him a clone he made of Punk IPA. If I remember correctly, it tasted pretty spot on to what I remember the original tasting like. The signature obviously being the hop profile. I asked him to send me the recipe he had for future reference, which he kindly did. I’ve had it tucked it away all this time, and thought now would be a good time to give it a go as I hate to see tears on my friends faces when hey can’t get a beer they want. (haha, just teasing you Brewtal Honesty!)

Looking to Brew Dog’s site for some verification, I tweaked the recipe slightly to match the information I was able to glean from it:

ABV: 5.6%

OG: 1053

IBU’s: 45

100% Marris Otter Extra Pale Malt

Chinook, Simcoe, Ahtanum, Nelson Sauvin

David’s recipe had no 60 min addition in it, which I found interesting, so I opted to toss a tiny bit of Chinook in at 60mins just for fun. Maybe omitting the 60 min addition is part of the magic? I guess we’ll have to wait and see…

One other thing I don’t know is what kind of yeast they use. I usually start off with my old standby of US-05 first to see if everything else is in line, and then play with the yeast after I’ve established the general idea.

A NOTE ON THE RECIPE: Having the last hop addition calculated at 1 minute puts the IBU’s high at 57, but having them at flameout drops them to 36, even though you’d still get some IBU’s while whirlpooling/standing to chill. I’m going by what David did originally, which was delicious, but to match the original, I may need to tweak this. Either way, the combo is going to provide that special Punk IPA profile.

Building on my previous hopping experiment where I set out to find The Effect of pH on Hop Character, I decided to try something that I’ve been wanting to explore for some time now, the difference in character between whole cone hops and pellet hops. Honestly, I’ve only ever used pellet hops. Probably because of their ease and availability. They’ve produced excellent results in some cases and less than excellent results in others.

Two of my favourite breweries, Sierra Nevada and Victory Brewing, both swear by using only whole cone hops. I’m going to heed their experience and agree that there must be something to it. But what exactly? I’ve heard the extra processing that goes into pelletizing does have an effect on the resulting character, but again, to what extent? Generally I’m of the mind that the less processing in anything food related, the better. Let’s see if this holds true for hops.

I brewed 2 batches over the weekend of my standard Sierra Nevada Pale Ale recipe, exactly the same, except I used whole cone Cascades for the 10 minute and flameout additions in one, and pellets in the other. (pellets were used for the magnum & perle additions in both) Some of you may say that I should have used all whole cone and all pellets to really know the difference, but this is the stock I had on hand. If it doesn’t demonstrate the differences well enough, I will try it again with all whole cone hops. Knowing that the utilization is different for pellets vs. cones, I relied upon Beersmith to calculate the variation and adjusted my additions accordingly to have matching IBU contributions in each batch.

First thing I can say right off the bat, if you’re using whole cone hops for the first time, use a bigger pot, or adjust your batch size to match the pot you have. Whole cone hops are very bulky and will absorb a lot of wort. If in your software (such as BeerSmith) you have the ability to adjust the amount of wort lost to trub, then at least double it as a starting point. (I’d suggest 1 gallon) This will account for the extra wort lost to the whole cone hops.

The second thing I can say is save yourself the frustration of getting your chiller plugged up and use some kind of filter in your brew kettle. A few ways to do this would be to use a bazooka screen, a stainless steel braid, or a blichmann hop blocker. I didn’t think of this beforehand and had to remove my hoses, clear the lines, sanitize everything (to be safe) and try again, 3 times!. Stupid me, what a pain! haha. As a result, I had a longer stand time than I would normally have before I chilled my wort down. I’ll have to keep this in mind when tasting the final beers as it may have contributed more IBU’s to the finished beer.

I’ll let you know what differences I detect in a couple weeks when they’re ready to compare.

I had tasted my version before this and really liked it, but had no idea how it would stack up to the real thing. Turns out, they were both excellent IPA’s, but there were some definite differences…

Appearance

colour was slightly darker in my version

foam stability was about the same

Malt & Body

malt character was more complex and richer in the original

body was slightly more full in the original

Hops

This is where I noticed the biggest difference. The h0p aroma was more present in mine due to freshness, but it had an entirely different character than the original. Mine had a very dominant ‘rose’ character to it, something I had never experienced in a beer before. I did read an article in Zymurgy recently that discussed how the finished aroma of dry hopping can be incredibly different depending on how much yeast is present in the beer. There are numerous bio-reactions that happen that convert and change the myriad molecules involved in hop aroma. I was in a bit of a rush to get this one kegged to see whether or not it was worthy of a NHC submission, so I did something I had never done before. Continue reading →

Firestone Walker is not a name you hear too often up here in Toronto. We kind of live behind an iron curtain of sorts when it comes to the amazing selection of craft beers in the United States.

As my interest in the American craft beer scene deepens, I’ve been hearing more and more about them. It seems like they have something very special going on out there in Paso Robles, California. For starters, they are the only brewery in North America that uses a “Burton Union” style fermentation system, aptly titled the “Firestone Union“.

Of their many award winning beers, one has become a classic example of the west coast style IPA, Union Jack IPA. I’ve been reading Mitch Steele’s IPA book and For The Love of Hops by Stan Hieronymus recently, which has got me very inspired to brew some heavily hopped beers. Lucky for us, in both books, the brewers at Firestone Walker have been kind enough to let us in on how they make it.

Standing over my temperature controlled chest freezer, looking down at my 2 kegs of fully carbonated Bohemian Pilsner, is a very pleasant sight indeed. I used the exact same recipe and maintained the same fermentation schedule for both a single infusion and a decoction version to see what differences could be had. (See original post: Pilsner Urquell: Decoction mash or Single Infusion?) It’s been a long time in the making. Two separate brew days, with the decoction taking me a whopping 11.5 hours (!), 14 days in primary, and another 40 days of lagering. The fact that it is ready to bottle this week, lines up perfectly with us being at the height of summer.